Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-01-18
THE QUESTION OF WAGES.

The Los Angeles Express quotes the
REcoRD-U UNION wherein it pointed out
that other men had willingly taken the
places of the car strikers in San Francisco
at the wages the latter objected to, which
proved the labor not skilled and the strike
unnecessary, and propounds the question
aatly in a rather caustic criticism
care wages to be determined solely by the
amount for which men are willing to
work ?" 1t adds: " If hordes of Chinese
or other foreigners come to this country
and offer to work for less than current
wages, corporations could not be wrong in
reducing the current wages. We suggest to
the RECORD UNION that this opinion is a
little antique"
Is it Then it has the warrant of
having been considered by men, and not
being "new-fangled." Now, abstractly,
we affirm and challenge the Express to
successful denial that labor is worth pre-
cisely what men are willing to work for.
But saying this does not approve the
policy of making grinding merchandise of
mems bitter necessities in order to fill al
ready plethoric purses. There are private
and corporate employers in vast number
who take the line of better policy, and
by paying good wage receive greater and
better results from labor. The car strikers
in San Francisco were unwilling to work
for the wage offered their labor, there
fore, was worth more to them than that.
Others took their places at the rejected
wages their labor was then worth
to them that figure. Whatever we may
think of the policy of low wages,
Il remains truiSm that the
labor market rate always takes on the
measure of the lowest bid And it is for
this reason, among others, that we have
uniformity opposed the unrestricted immi-
grafton of Chinese laborers, because their
lower bid degrades white labor to the level
of Mongolian methods of living. In short,
labor figures in the cost of production as
a commodity, exchangeable at exchange
values controlled by the need of one man
fer it, and the willingness of another to
supply the want; commercial economics
great it in no other light; but when it
comes to the question of men as factors of
civilization and as moral forces, it is not
question of commercial economy. Labor
IS a force in production, and as such COM
petes with itself, and, as we have said, the
lower bid becomes the cold standard of
commercial value But character and
superior capacity are also factors, and thus
skill and reliability give TO labor an addi-
tional Importance in the eyes of all who
estimate the full value of character and
superior capacity. But given, that char
acter and capacity are equal IN two bid
ders, then the lower fixes the rate of the
wage. All wages above and beyond that
rate are the result of conscience, sometimes
but oftenest of the policy that encourages
the tried employee 10 continued and re-
newed interest in his labor and the cause
of the employer. And let our contempo-
rary keep it in mind that the world is full
of examples of the employment of the bet
ter policy that the lower bidder does not
always secure the place. that character, supe-
rior capacity and trustworthiness are fact
ors recognized as broadly as mere physical
force; that employers by the myriad do
pay, and wisely, higher rate than mere
competition would fix, because they believe
it is the better policy.